


i stayed in the darkness with you

by hotmesslewis



Category: Historical RPF, Lewis and Clark
Genre: M/M, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 21:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12219753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: Fort Clatsop, 1805.  Meriwether Lewis can't sleep.  William Clark seeks him out.





	i stayed in the darkness with you

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Florence + the Machine's "Cosmic Love," obviously.

There was a break in the rain very late in the night, or perhaps in the youngest hours of the morning; the dreamer, deep in his land of dreamed mountains and dreamed rivers that never ended (a blessing or a nightmare, he couldn’t be sure), was not sure of which, evening or morning.

What the dreamer was sure of was the stirring of his lover, co-captain, as the restive man roused his body from the bed of robes and furs they shared for warmth in the room of the fort that was their own.

Meriwether Lewis: the sleepless one, and William Clark the gentle dreamer.

It took longer for the dreamer to shake off the wintery blankets of sleep, but shake them off he did, to follow his lover. For surely that had been his vow, to follow this man wherever he would lead, to the ends of the very earth, be it into Eden or into Hell. That included, as unpleasant as it might be, venturing out into the cold, damp night of a northwest winter, but Clark took the moment to wrap his body in the heaviest of sleep-warmed blankets before following his beloved.

The sleepless man stood barefoot in the cold mud, clutching a single buffalo robe about his shoulders, looking into the blank night sky. Clark approached him, concerned; touched him, tender.

“Meriwether?”

“Billy.” Lewis tried to smile at him, but could not quite manage it. “I did not mean to wake you; I never dreamed that you should follow me out.”

“I was—” disturbed, he nearly said, but he caught and corrected in time “—anxious to think that you might be unwell.”

“Oh, is that all?” Lewis asked. “I assure you, I am perfectly well, dear Clark,” Lewis lied, this time with a smile, a strange, haunted smile.

“It’s a nice night,” Clark also lied, and poorly. “I might stay with you, if you would not mind the company.”

“As you please.” The reply was distant, indifferent; the sleepless man’s eyes were fixed to the sky.

Clark needed to touch him. There was the desire, of course, but there were other desires, pulling at him more strongly. To bare their bodies to the world and touch the warm hills of the man’s body, the muscles in his back and stomach, the taut skin at his hips, the glory of his thighs. But there were other things, too—just to hold him close. Just to curve around him, cover him in every way possible as though he could feel him to his very soul. There was something necessary in this touch.

Clark settled for what he could have, touching Lewis’s hands and arms, his shoulders and the back of his neck.

But Lewis remained, resistant, thinking only of the sky.

Until he started, pulling away, ecstatic, rejoicing:

“There, man, there! Do you see it?”  
  
Yes, there!--a break in the clouds, a smattering of stars, sparking, shining, glittering like so many precious stones. Clark wondered--those bright white lights, those punctures in the fabric of the sky--did they truly burn, or did they freeze all that they touched to the very core? Strange that a man could find his way home by these lights, so many millions of miles away.  
  
“Yes, Meriwether. I see it.”  
  
Darkness, and such awful loneliness.  
  
He saw it very well, even as the heavy clouds covered the hope again and Lewis sighed within himself. "I think I will stay out a bit longer, see if I can catch another glimpse of the sky again. It's been too long since I've seen the stars." He shook off Clark's insistent hands, and wouldn't look at him. "Go back inside; it's far to cold out here, Billy."  
  
Clark voice broke, made heavy by a fear of loneliness he had seen countless times in Lewis's eyes. He'd never been able to place the look before; he would never be able to again, so he would live it out tonight. "I should like to stay, if it's all the same to you."  
  
It was Lewis who touched Clark, then, fingers tracing his cheek, trailing down his neck.


End file.
